George’s immediate retirement and the forced exits of two other senior officers were announced by the Pentagon on Thursday, as the United States continues military action against Iran.
The Pentagon said Gen. Randy George “will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately,” according to Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman. Parnell did not provide a reason for the timing of the departure, and the announcement came as the administration continues prosecuting the Iran war.
The Pentagon also said it had removed Army Gen. David Hodne and Army Maj. Gen. William Green, again without offering a reason for their departures. The announcement followed earlier reporting by CBS News on George’s ouster, and AP reported that Pentagon officials were not explaining why George was leaving despite the short timeline and continuing conflict in the region.
Gen. Christopher LaNeve will step in as acting Army chief of staff, according to a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official discussed sensitive leadership changes. LaNeve had been Hegseth’s top military aide and was nominated by Trump in October to be the Army’s vice chief of staff, according to the AP report. The AP story described LaNeve’s move as a rapid rise from being a two-star general two years earlier.
LaNeve would take over for George, who is a West Point graduate and an infantry officer who served in the first Gulf War and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the Biden administration, George served as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s top military aide from 2021 to 2022 before taking on top leadership roles in the Army.
The AP story placed the shakeup within a broader pattern of personnel changes since Hegseth took office last year, describing “more than a dozen” firings of top generals and admirals. It cited that George made it through an initial round of those departures in February 2025, when Hegseth removed top military leaders including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Gen. Jim Slife, and Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr., according to the AP report.
The AP report also described the roles of the other two officers. Hodne had been head of the Army Transformation and Training Command, a unit that was stood up in December as part of George’s effort to modernize the Army and amid Hegseth’s push to reduce the number of general officers. Green had been the Army’s chief of chaplains, and Hegseth announced two major reforms to the military chaplain corps a little over a week earlier.
In a video message last week, Hegseth said he wanted chaplains to focus more on God and less on therapeutic “self-help and self-care,” and he said chaplains would no longer wear their rank on their uniform, but instead be identified by religious insignia. The AP report said the changes come as the military has increasingly relied on chaplains to address growing numbers of troops in mental health distress.
The leadership turnover came as Army paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne division were reported heading to the Middle East along with thousands of Marines and other assets, while the Trump administration avoided questions about whether U.S. ground troops would be deployed against Iran. In a prime-time address Wednesday about the war, Trump offered no end date and few details on his strategy, while forecasting additional military action over the next two to three weeks.
In remarks reported by AP, Trump said of Iran: “We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” before adding that “we’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong.” Hegseth echoed that line after Trump’s speech in a social media post that simply read, “Back to the Stone Age.” Iran’s mission to the United Nations responded on X, saying the comment “reflects ignorance, not strength,” and noting that Iran’s civilization spans over 7,000 years.
Separately, the AP report’s correction section said the earlier reporting misspelled the name of Gen. Jim Slife as Silfe.